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Ruby Slippers
"Haha...well, I'm a little muddled. The Munchkins have called upon me because a new Witch has just dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East. And there's the house, and here you are; and that's all that's left of the Wicked Witch of the East..." (Glinda points her magic wand in the direction of Dorothy's fallen house where two feet in white and black stripped stockings lay under it, wearing shoes of sparkling ruby red.) -(1939) The Most Magical Slippers of All Time The Ruby Slippers are the beautiful charmed shoes worn by Dorothy Gale in the magical Land of Oz as played by the late Judy Garland in the famous and iconic classic 1939 MGM musical movie The Wizard of Oz. The Ruby Slippers from Oz also made a semi-sequel appearance worn by then child actress Fairuza Balk, who played a younger more "faithful" Dorothy to L. Frank Baum's Oz books in the 1985 Disney Cult Classic Return to Oz. (The iconic Ruby Slippers are the only item connected between the two Oz films) Click Your Heels! Ruby Slippers 1939... Glinda (1939) Glinda (1939) *The Dorothy Gale of 1939 was given these beautiful shoes by Glinda the Good, as they are taken from the dead Wicked Witch of the East who was crushed to death under Dorothy's fallen farmhouse after it was carried to the magical Land of Oz via Kansas cyclone. Shortly after Dorothy's Arrival to Oz in Munchkin Country aka Munchkinland, the pair were magically teleported by Glinda's magic wand on Dorothy's feet. This was done to successfully keep them from falling into the hands of the Witch of the Easts' green skinned sister, the Wicked Witch of the West, who wanted to use the pairs magic to strengthen her own Wickedness. Since she was the sister of the pairs original owner the Wicked Witch believed the shoes should rightfully be handed down to her. Throughout the entire story the Wicked Witch tries many times to retrieve the magic Slippers from Dorothy until she is ultimately liquefied by the girl with a bucket of water and melted away when Dorothy is imprisoned in her castle in the haunted forest. Ruby Slippers 1985... Aunt Em in Return to Oz (1985) Dorothy Gale in Return to Oz (1985) *The Dorothy of 1985, (semi-Dorothy of 1939)-takes place six months after the first adventure in Oz. The story eventually explains that when Dorothy clicked her heels, she accidentally lost her Ruby Slippers on the way back to Kansas, they just "fell out of the sky one day" as Dorothy was so anxious to get home. As a result they had fallen into the hands of the evil Nome King who used them to successfully conquer the Emerald City. In the end Dorothy retrieves the shoes and is sent home after adorning the pair on Princess Ozma's feet. Ruby Slippers or Silver Shoes? Glinda (1939) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) In L. Frank Baum's original tale, the first Dorothy Gale wore shoes made out of silver with pointed toes. The pair of charmed footwear were refered to not as slippers in Baum's book but "Silver Shoes". The only thing the Silver Shoes have in common with the Ruby Slippers is that they were both once owned by the Wicked Witch of the East and can teleport it's wearer to any place in the world when the heels are clicked together three times. From Silver To Ruby... *In circa 1937 MGM announced that they would be adapting L. Frank Baums' classic story into a musical starring a sixteen year old Judy Garland as twelve year old Dorothy Gale. In post production the shoes were officially changed from silver to Ruby due to the MGM studio company wanting to take advantage of the new state of the art Technicolor that had just come out in cinema. They believed Ruby-red would appear more, breathtaking, dazzling and striking on film and would be a better focal point against any other surroundings. Thus letting the shoes stand out better on the big screen than silver would as they feared silver would get lost in the picture and blend in. So in 1938, the shoes were replaced and the Ruby Slippers would capture the hearts of people for decades to come, being known as the most memorable and beautiful pairs of shoes to ever be seen in a movie. Even 70+ years after the making. *The Ruby Slippers have more powers attributed to them than the silver shoes in the original book, as they cannot be taken off unless through death and were able to send volts of electricity out to shock The Wicked Witch of the West's fingers in the 1939 film, before she was even able to touch them. In Return to Oz when the Ruby Slippers fell into the hands of the infamous Nome King, he was able to kidnap the Scarecrow, conquer the Emerald City, destroy the Yellow Brick Road and turn everyone in Oz to cold hard stone. Thus leaving Oz and it's inhabitants in a state of apocalyptic ruins. Once the Nome King is defeated, the shoes are finally retrieved by Dorothy, who uses the pairs' power to restore everything to normal again and bring the people of Oz back to life. And even stripping the movie's Villain named Princess Mombi, of her powers. In Baum's original story, nothing of the sort is ever mentioned in the 1900 book. The Silver Shoes only have the power of teleportation. Once the heels are knocked against each other three solid times and given directions, the pair will take three fast steps so sudden that the wearer will travel in the speed of lightning to their destination in exactly three seconds no matter the distance. *Because of their iconic stature, the Ruby Slippers are now among the most treasured and valuable of film memorabilia. As was customary for important props, a number of pairs were made for the film. Thus being auctioned for thousands and even millions of dollars. There are several pairs of Ruby Slippers, though the exact number is unknown. Five pairs are known to have survived since 1939. Making The Ruby Slippers The Slippers of 1939... Glinda (1939) The actual shoes underneath all the sequins and beads were 1930's style white silk pumps from Innes Shoe Company in Los Angeles. The shoes were then dyed red by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM). Some of the shoes had a gold or silver stamp, while others had cloth sewn on each right shoe with the company's logo. Also hand written on both shoes is Judy Garland's name which is still visible today. The original Ruby Slippers for the 1939 film were regular shoes with a 1.75 - 2" heel. The shoes were dyed red and then covered in a red/orange georgette fabric which served as the base for the stitching. Approximately 4,600 metallic dark red gelatin sequins were used on each pair. Multiple pairs of the Slippers were made in slightly varying shades of dark red and were used in different scenes based upon the background color they would be filmed against. The bows on each shoe were sewn on red/orange georgette fabric overlays which were fitted over thinned red leather. The bows are outlined with 46 rose montee rhinestones, three large center red glass jewels with gold reflective backing, and varying numbers of bugle beads. Arabian Test Shoes On October 31, 1938, Judy Garland tested two different styles of ruby slippers. One shoe was the sequined left shoe of the pair now in the Smithsonian, but without the bow attached for the test photo. On the other foot, Judy wore a wild looking, curly toed shoe covered in sequins, shield shaped glass beads, and rhinestones. These shoes were not used in any filming - discarded or used. They were deemed too ornate for Judy Garland's Dorothy and were subsequently put into storage. These shoes have become known as the "Arabian Test Shoes" and were owned by actress Debbie Reynolds until they were auctioned in 2011. In Supernatural The ruby slippers contain powerful magic, but Dorothy never actually wore them. She felt it would be "tacky" to wear a dead person's shoes. Charlie Bradbury ultimately kills the Wicked Witch with them. (Supernatural: "Slumber Party") Return to Oz 1985 Return to Oz (1985) Like many elements in the 1939 film, Dorothy's ruby slippers have passed into the realm of popular legend to become, quite possibly, the most famous piece of costuming in all of motion picture history. Their inclusion in Return to Oz was never really in question, and they are the only genuine physical and visual tie that viewers of the newer Oz film will have to the earlier one. But their appearance in such a major cinematic effort did pose problems, both legal and physical. As created by Baum, the slippers were, of course, not "ruby" at all, but silver. When MGM changed the color in 1938, they became an integral part of their film, - as well as MGM's legal rightful property. So, to avoid copyright infringement, special permission had to be obtained from Metro in order for the ruby slippers to appear in a Disney picture. The new ruby slippers were hand-made by designer McPhail. In all, he crafted seven pairs of shoes: two pair (size 3) for Ozma, two pair (Size 11) for the Nome King, and the remaining three for Dorothy. The shoes are worn by all three characters at different times in the film. In construction, McPhail started with a plain red leather cork shoe with a Louis heel. This was then covered with reflective fabric onto which multi-faceted glass rubies were attached. These red stones, imported from Austria, first had to be soaked in sulfuric acid in order to remove their mercury backing. Then, two optical glues were used to attach and hold them in place: one sprayed directly on the fabric and a second attached directly to the shoes. Because of their faceting, each stone had to be place individually on each shoe. To complicate matters further, no amount of glue was able to hold all the stones permanently in place -especially when they were jostled by under hot sound stage lights by active little girls. The sparkling beauty of the slippers was later enhanced in post-production by the additional optical effects, which make the slippers seem to "glow" on screen. "Fairuza Balk simply could not stay still between scenes," McPhail remembers. "After all, she's only 10 years old - you can't expect children to stay put. Even sitting in a chair, she would do things like tap her feet and click her shoes together. The stones would go rolling across the sound stage, and I would chase after them. We finally had to take the shoes off her between shots but, even so, I would end up sweeping the stage at the end of each day to try and collect whatever had fallen off." The Beauty Of Technicolor Glinda the Good (1939) In L. Frank Baum's original novel, Dorothy wears silver shoes. Screenwriter Noel Langley changed them to ruby to take advantage of the Technicolor process used for the movie. Like all the costumes in the film, they were designed by Gilbert Adrian, the head of MGM's costume department. Sequins were hand-sewn onto a chiffon surface to give the shimmering effect. At first the costume department had tried merely to spray leather shoes red, though that effort failed. Interestingly, the ruby slippers used in the film were more burgundy than red. The 3-strip Technicolor process used in 1939 could not reproduce colors with true-to-life fidelity, and various compromises were made out of necessity. Shoes that were actually red would have photographed as orange. Salman Rushdie wrote a short story titled "The Auction of the Ruby Slippers." In his book The Ruby Slippers of Oz (1989), Rhys Thomas writes about four extant pairs of them. In Wicked: In Gregory Maguire's 1995 mature Oz novel titled Wicked, the shoes are not Ruby Slippers. Nor are they Silver Shoes like in Baum's book. The shoes are not called by any specific color or gem. They are created and designed in such a unique and authentic way, that nothing has ever been done nor seen before them. The shoes are the very first of its kind. So instead they are described like this: "From a pile of ash shavings she withdrew a shoe, and then another. Were they silver? – or blue? – or now red? – lacquered with a candy shell brilliance of polish? It was hard to tell and it didn't matter; the effect was dazzling." (2.3.4.20) The character Turtle Heart probably describes their symbolism best: "To look in glass," said Turtle Heart, pointing to the roundel he had made as a toy for Elphaba, "is to see the future, in blood and rubies." (1.8.46) The shoes are the one thing the Witch wants above all else, both in the musical and Baum's book strictly for the pairs mysterious powers. But Elphaba wants the shoes for slightly different reasons than her movie counterpart. While in the MGM movie and Baum's book, the shoes were symbols of power and protection. In Maguire's reinvisonment the shoes are symbols of what Elphaba has secretly craved all her life; love, respect, acceptance, and family. Above all else, Nessa's shoes represent Elphaba's need to be accepted and considered important, particularly to her father. The shoes aren't just related to themes of family and acceptance, though. They also, as in the movie, represent beauty and authority. Interestingly, though, that becomes more of an excuse for Elphaba to justify her obsession with getting the shoes from Dorothy: "Should she pursue Dorothy, should she snatch those shoes away – and what were her real motives? Was it to keep them out of the hands of the Wizard ... Or was it to snatch back some small shred of Frex's attention?" (5.10.1) Ultimately, Elphaba is the one who turns the shoes into something more than they really are. And other than considered dazzling to look at, the shoes really don't have much power at all. *'(Gregory Maguire combines elements from the 1939 film and paying homage to the 1900 book by Baum by making the slippers both ruby and silver while adding his own twist to his own version of the classic Oz tale.)' In the successful Broadway Musical adaption of Wicked--the shoes are first silver. But when a magic spell is cast upon them to help the handicapped Nessarose walk without any assistance, the shoes appear to turn to a beautiful red in colour due to the walking spell. Marilyn Monroe's Ruby Slipper Stilettos Marilyn Monroe was one of Hollywood's most glamorous "IT" girls. And even decades after her tragic death she still is viewed as one of the most famous sex symbols of America. Marilyn also knew an icon when she saw one -- and she never hesitated to exploit the archetypal. She had her own "Ruby Slippers" made by Salvatore Ferragamo in circa 1953. Specifically made for the movie "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." References Category:Magical Items